Mo`olelo leader Sueko lands major grant

National theater group's award of $75,000 will provide for 16-month mentorship in D.C.

Mo`olelo Performing Arts Co. leader Seema Sueko (pictured here last year at the Miramar Recyling Center for a piece on her company's "green theater" initiatives) has won a $75,000 national grant to undertake a mentorship in Washington, D.C.
— K.C. Alfred

Mo`olelo Performing Arts Co. leader Seema Sueko (pictured here last year at the Miramar Recyling Center for a piece on her company's "green theater" initiatives) has won a $75,000 national grant to undertake a mentorship in Washington, D.C.
— K.C. Alfred

Seema Sueko, who has proved a formidable force in San Diego theater (and gained national notice) as the co-founder and leader of Mo`olelo Performing Arts Co., has just received her biggest recognition yet.

Sueko has landed a $75,000 grant to spend 16 months in a mentorship program at Washington, D.C.’s Arena Stage, one of the country’s most prominent regional theaters.

With the award from Theatre Communications Group, an advocacy organization for nonprofit theater, Sueko will work closely with Molly Smith, Arena’s artistic director and herself the founder of a now-thriving theater in Alaska. Sueko was one of six people nationwide out of hundreds of applicants to receive TCG’s new Leadership U[niversity] One-on-One grants, geared toward “exceptionally talented early-career leaders from all areas of theater.”

The grant was announced at an event Thursday evening at Mo`olelo’s resident Tenth Avenue Theatre downtown, with San Diego Councilman Todd Gloria and Commission for Arts and Culture executive director Victoria Hamilton among those in attendance.

Mo`olelo, launched in 2004, has become known for its socially conscious programming and extensive community outreach. Sueko will travel to Washington in December; the theater plans to announce the hiring of an interim general and producing manager by September.

TCG also announced that Old Globe technical director Benjamin Thoron has received a Continuing Ed award (which provides up to $6,000 as part of the same grant program) for exploring project management methods.

• Speaking of: Sueko has added her voice to the concerns raised over the casting of La Jolla Playhouse's "The Nightingale." The Page to Stage workshop musical, based on a Hans Christian Andersen fable set in ancient China, has been criticized for including few actors of Asian heritage.

Sueko forwarded a statement from the Asian American Performers Action Coalition (AAPAC), whose leaders will attend a panel discussion organized by the Playhouse for this Sunday to discuss the controversy.

The AAPAC statement reads (in part), “The idea that a play that takes place in feudal China can be cast with only two Asian-American actors out of a company of 12, with the lead role of the Chinese emperor played by a white actor, is in step with a long history of appropriation and misrepresentation of Asian people that has consistently denied Asian artists a voice in shaping how they are represented."

Sueko added in an email that "a few of us met privately and with compassion with La Jolla Playhouse leadership earlier this week to discuss the issues. Our hope is that (Playhouse) leadership would do something groundbreaking, something no one has ever done when it comes to these issues of race and representation: Say a sincere "I'm sorry." Then back that up with some steps.

"We understand that they did not intend to hurt their fellow artists, and an apology could really change the conversation and advance the dialogue so that we all don't find ourselves in a similar situation in the future."

The Playhouse has emphasized that "The Nightingale" is a work in progress (like all Page to Stage shows) and that elements of the show (including the cast) could well change in any future productions (although those will take place elsewhere than the La Jolla theater).

Sueko is of Japanese and Pakistani ancestry; in 2008, Mo'olelo became the Playhouse's first resident theater company.